Need advice on keeping expressed milk cool during the journey to nursery

[uberalice]

DS2 starts nursery soon and I'm planning to send some bottles of expressed milk for him. The journey door to door is about an hour (by train). Any tips on keeping the milk cool?

an insulated bag with a cool pack

if you freeze the milk, you could put it stright from freezer into the bag- it would be defrosted by the time it was needed

Why not buy some cool packs that you put in picnic baskets and put one in with the breastmilk to keep it cool...alternatively, express the breastmilk, freeze it and then it can be defrosting on the journey?

actually, now I come to think of it, I used to freeze it in the bottle, so as to avoid decanting

Thanks tissy and puss. So is it OK to defrost ebm slowly at room temp? I was assuming that you either had to put it in the fridge, or quickly defrost by immersing the bag in hot water, then use straight away.

See here for how long bm is good for, fresh, chilled or frozen:

www.llli.org/NB/NBstorage.html

Thanks terramum. Useful link.

Do you have to do that commute every day with him or what?
Or is this your solo journey to/from work?

moondog, I work from home and DH will take him in on his way to work. It's just a couple of days a week. And when I saw it's an hour long journey, it's probably more like 45 mins, now I think about it.

Blimey..
Well as long as it is dh's job and not yours..
Sounds like you have quite enough on your plate!

Not as bad as it sounds, moondog. The nursery is just round the corner from DH's work. DS1 already goes there and he loves the journey on the train with his Dad. It's a 15 min train journey with 15 min walks either end.

I shall never moan again about my 10 minute nip up the road to nursery.

How about popping your bottles in a wide necked food flask with ice cubes in it

Hi. The little insulated bags you can buy with mini freezer packs are really good. Defrosted mine overnight in the fridge, then popped them in this for journey to minder.